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Thinking on marketing, technology, digital commerce and more from Tony Long

Gaper’s Block 2.0

Maybe it’s even 3.0 by now…who knows…

Thanks to our 24-hour news cycle and the mini computers we all use to communicate with each other we have been brought deeply into the middle of some of the world’s most profound, extraordinary events. I have already written quite a lot on this topic.So, in the process of reading about the death of mad-comic-genius-not-the-soap-opera-guy Peter Bergman I saw a video keyframe from a preflight freakout performed by an American Airlines flight attendant. I had heard about this, but to my mind against a backdrop of Israel & Iran, the Republican nomination process, Afghanistan, Peyton Manning, the anniversary of the tsunami and earthquake in Japan and March Madness™ her unplanned removal from the aircraft was a non-event.

Then I looked a little more closely at the keyframe.

In addition to the smartphone that was capturing the “event” there are no fewer than 4 others right there, “on the scene,” like paparazzi or the “real” news media clamoring to capture something. Plus who knows how many more from behind also recording the fun.

If you watch the video you can even hear the passengers telling a guy toward the front to sit down so they can see.

Smartphone video cameras jockeying to record an event and creating a blockage…it’s the new Gaper’s Block. Quick! Somebody update the wiki!